GAC Early Warnings

Applicants for .health, were subject to a number of GAC Early Warnings.The warning system is noted as a strong recommendation on behalf of national governments to the ICANN Board that a given TLD application should be denied as it stands. Applicants are encouraged to work with objecting GAC members.[12]

France and Mali both objected to all four applications; France claims that the demands for legitimacy with regards to health services around the world prevents .health from being an easily deployable TLD, and that all applicants need greater security measures, they further note that: " We also refer to the requests from the World Health Organization NGOs, and others, who wrote to ICANN and the GAC to delay the attribution of the string to allow for consultation with the global health community on operating the TLD in the Public Interest."[13] Mali makes similar claims, and Cameroon also submitted an Early Warning to Afilias .health application, copying the French warning verbatim.[14]

Donuts replied to France´s warning to .health, and its similar objections for .architect, .sarl, .hotel and .vin, with an impassioned defense of the validity of open registration for New gTLDs.It notes that restricting registration unfairly assumes malfeasance on the part of the registrant, that no such restrictions exist for related domains in any exisiting gTLDs or ccTLDs, and that verification and restriction would inevitably raise the price of registration significantly. They go on to quote the GAC's own advice with regards to its contract with .xxx registry provider, ICM Registry, which notes that at that time the GAC was against any monitoring of TLD content given that it seems to overstep ICANN's technical mandate.[15]

European Commission Communiqué

The European Commission flagged all applicants for .health outside of ICANN's defined remediation processes.

Just after ICANN's GAC issued its Early Warnings, which are advice given from one GAC member country to an applicant warning it of potential issues within its application, the European Commission issued a letter to all applicants within the new gTLD program. The letter highlights 58 applications that "could raise issues of compatibility with the existing legislation .. and/or with policy positions and objectives of the European Union." It notes a desire to open a dialogue with each offending applicant.

The Commission specifically notes that this objection is not a part of the GAC Early Warning process, and goes on to note that "the Commission does not consider itself legally bound to [ICANN] processes," given that there is not legal agreement between the two bodies.[16][17]

ALAC Objection

In mid-February 2013, it was noted that the ALAC had intentions to file formal Community Objections against all applicants for .health by the end of the month, stating that "Objection statements on community grounds will be drafted for the applications for .health given that the four tests for community objection grounds were passed." Their constituents argue that the string is a sensitive topic that should be managed carefully with input and management from international health organizations. They note that none of the applicants are community based, and that all of them represent for-profit ventures.[18]

It was not immediately clear whether there would also be objections filed to the mandarin version of the TLD, .健康, which was submitted by a separate venture than the 4 .health applicants. Later, it was revealed that while an objection to the string was suggested, there was no follow through on voting or objecting.

For some reason, Afilias' application for .health will not be receiving an ALAC objection while all other applicants will. Afilias managed to get one more "no" vote from the ALAC Board than other applicants, meaning that with only 50% voting "yes", the motion to object failed.[19]

In January 2014, it was announced that both of the Community Objections filed by ALAC (against DotHealth and Donuts, respectively) failed and the objections were dismissed. The applicants were allowed to proceed towards resolving the contention through private or ICANN auction.[20]

IO Objections

ICANN's Independent Objector (IO) filed a Limited Public Interest objection against all of the applicants for .health. The IO is an appointed authority on international law whose role is to object to strings on the grounds of Community harm and Limited Public Interest were detailed in the applicant guidebook. His objections are official objections and are funded by ICANN, though his office is otherwise independent. Reasons for the specific case against .health were not initially given, but, in the case of Limited Public Interest, "the applied-for gTLD string must be contrary to generally accepted legal norms of morality and public order that are recognized under fundamental principles of international law. The expert panel appointed by the ICC will base its decision on the existence of such a contradiction." The applied for string must threaten an incitement to violence of lawless action, discrimination, child pornography, or "be contrary to specific principles of international law as reflected in relevant international instruments of law."[21] The majority of the IO's objections are to health related TLD applications.

The IO lost its objection to Afilias' applicant for .health in a ICC determination by 3 panelists made on 6 November 2013. The determination was the first Limited Public Interest Objection to be decided, as well as the first objection filed by the IO to be decided.[22]

The IO also lost its objections to the remaining two applications for .health in December 2013.[23]